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Chrwmiaidos
Chrwmiaidos ''χɾˠ''ʊ''m.ɪ.'aɪ̯̆.dɔs,''' ''usually anglicised as '''Galloromance '''or '''Caledoromance, also known as Cormic, is a descendant of Archaic Latin spoken in a few secluded regions of the Scottish Highlands and Central Wales; the origin story of the language is largely unknown. Classification and Dialects Chrwmiaidos is believed to have developed from Archaic Latin far before the Vulgar Latin that evolved into the Romance languages came to be; thus, Chrwmiaidos is counted as its own sub-branch of the Italic language family. It has two major dialects that are mainly distinguished by their amount of loanwords from either Brythonic or Goidelic Celtic languages; in addition, recent attempts to regularise the language have brought about a "Standard Galloromance" which has a lot of double vocabulary due to trying to preserve words from both dialects, Phonological differences vary as much inside the main dialect-areas as they do between the two main dialects. The information detailed here largely pertains to the new "Standard Galloromance". Phonology Consonants * the uvular fricative /χ/ is often realised as a voiced ʁ between vowels; before /eː/, /ɛ/, /iː/, /yː/, /ɪ/ and /ʏ/, it is often realised as a velar x or ɣ * before /w/, /ʊ/ or /uː/, a few dialects realise /χ/ as χʷ or even merge the sounds into a ʍ * likewise, the sibilants /s/ and /ʃ/ can be realised as voiced z and ʒ between vowels * the phoneme /ɾ/ takes coloring from the following vowels, becoming ɾˠ before the open, back or near-back vowels and ɾʲ before any other vowels * in coda-position, /l/ is often realised as a velarised ɫ Vowels * in a few dialects, the unstressed schwa sound ɘ̆ is sometimes realised as an extra-short ɑ̆, ɛ̆, ɪ̆, ʊ̆ or ʏ̆ where originally an unstress ed short vowel sound existed Diphthongs Any two vowels can form a diphthong in Chrwmiaidos; however, the front and near-front vowels only occur in diphthong endings. Short vowels in diphthong endings are often extra shortened. Phonotactics Orthography Grammar Nouns Nouns in Chrwmiaidos can take on 9 case forms and appear in singular and plural numbers; there are four different declensions for the endings of the nouns. Pronouns Chrwmiaidos is a pro-drop language and the predicate of a copular phrase is in the vocative case; that has led to the nominative form of pronouns going extinct. Like Latin, Chrwmiaidos lacks a distinct universal third-person personal pronoun. Verbs Verbs in Chrwmiaidos have three moods (the jussive, imperative and optative generally counted as one mood) to conjugate to, but only the indicative has preserved temporal distinctions of six tense/aspect combinations from Latin. In addition, there exist a passive past participle and active present and future participles. Differently from Latin, Chrwmiaidos has only one infinitive form. Syntax Lexicon Example text "Caraim ferbia “Is raich thab swynryfely nía”. Ast thwm east lóchws sanctws, archos, necropólos yw ruinaï, fawch coillad yw spelwnch obscwraiws yn siliabia, farciws scwrnec ast cadawrec fywstac. Pawchuï beis wywestuï chaedestea, ocradh, delichea, ynsywiws wltyc mwrbac. Mantichwr, nadhrach, newlswtws, aesychna, ilyocoros, chimaera, chwrnywc, strych, gwl, waighic, lychantropws, chawrscorpiw, striga, annis dúa, kikimwra, wypper… thám mwltuï chaedywim." (- translation of the quote below to English:) "I looked for the words "Witcher urgently needed". And then there'd be a sacred site, a dungeon, necropolis or ruins, forest ravine or grotto hidden in the mountains, full of bones and stinking carcasses. Some creatures which lived to kill, out of hunger, for pleasure, or invoked by some sick will. A manticore, wyvern, fogler, aeschna, ilyocoris, chimera, leshy, vampire, ghoul, graveir, were-wolf, giant scorpion, striga, black annis, kikimora, vypper... so many I've killed." - page 116, The Last Wish (UK Edition), Andrzej Sapkowski